


There's Only Now, There's Only Here

by stevergrsno (noxlunate)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Getting Together, M/M, Time Travel, minor Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli/Daniel Sousa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/stevergrsno
Summary: “Steve,”Peggy says when she reaches him with quick, steady steps, her- husband and friend? friends? partners? following behind at a more sedate pace.“Uh,” Steve says, and “Hi?” and “Would you mind telling me what the date is?”1951. Steve aimed for home and ended up in fucking 1951.Jesus christ.---In which Steve not showing up on the time pad wasn't exactly on purpose and we ignore 95% of that ending.





	There's Only Now, There's Only Here

**Author's Note:**

> I will not apologize for using lyrics from RENT for this title. I am tired and my brain could come up with nothing else so we reverted back like 15 years. Much like Steve Rogers in Endgame badumptsss. 
> 
> Anyways here's my fix it where Steve Rogers makes some decent decisions instead of lots of terrible ones.

 

Steve returns the last of the stones, breathes a heavy sigh of relief and sets about returning home. 

The last five years weigh on his shoulders in ways he can’t quite think about just yet, but he thinks maybe, just  _ maybe  _ he’ll get to go home and see Bucky- see Sam- see  _ everyone else  _ that they lost, and just  _ breathe _ for a minute without feeling like the world isn’t going to fall apart under his feet again. 

And then something with the temporal gps around his wrist goes haywire and fritzes out and Steve is left standing on an unfamiliar street, staring up at a house as Peggy Carter stumbles out her door with a laughing woman’s arms wrapped around her waist and a man following behind them. 

Her eyes land on Steve and she stops suddenly. The man stumbles directly into the woman attached to Peggy’s back and whatever the trio had been clearly laughing about dies off. 

“ _ Steve,”  _ Peggy says when she reaches him with quick, steady steps, her- husband and friend? friends?  _ partners _ ? following behind at a more sedate pace. 

“Uh,” Steve says, and “Hi?” and “Would you mind telling me what the date is?” 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

  1. Steve aimed for home and ended up in fucking _1951._



Jesus  _ christ _ . 

They’ve moved back into the house and Steve has been shoved into a chair while Peggy makes them all tea. 

Angie- The woman who had had her arms around Peggy- and Daniel- the man with them- are pouring over the device that had gotten Steve here, though Steve hasn’t got any idea if they know what they’re doing with it.

It doesn't much matter really. Steve doesn't have any clue what to do with it either. Tony would have, and Bruce might, but Tony's dead and Bruce is in the future, which means neither of them can exactly fix it for Steve.

When Peggy places the mug of tea into Steve’s hands and sits down with her own she fixes Steve with a considering look. 

“You’re older,” She says, small hands tucked around her mug. She looks so  _ young  _ to Steve now. He doesn’t remember feeling that way twelve years ago-  _ damned near a century ago-  _ but looking at her now, at the very beginnings of lines around her eyes and the brightness in her eyes, he feels every inch of the years between them.

"So are you," Steve says, the ghost of a smile curling on his lips. 

"Don't be difficult, Steve," Peggy says, trying to sound firm with Steve and not quite making it. 

“I am. Older that is. Difficult too though.” 

“What happened?” Peggy asks, and there’s burning curiosity there, the desire to  _ know  _ shining through as much as anything else. 

“It’s a long story Pegs.” 

“Well, I have a feeling we’ve got time,” Peggy says, and Steve thinks of not spilling it all, about keeping quiet out of the possibility of risking it and then remembers words about splitting timelines and alternate realities and terms that mostly went over his head but that he understood at a basic level.

He’s not an idiot. He understands that this already isn’t his timeline. Just by being here and talking with Peggy he’s changed something, and the one where he belongs isn’t  _here_ anymore. 

So, he takes a drink of his tea, takes a breath, and dives into the long story of the last 12 years. 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

“It seems you’re going to be stuck here for awhile. Howard seems fairly confident he can fix your… temporal gps system, but in the meantime you can stay here for a while longer. Angie and Daniel don’t mind in the least.” Peggy says, absently flicking through a packet of papers stamped with SHIELD across the front. She's a busy woman, Steve has learned that already in the few days he's been in 1951. 

“That’s fine, I’ve got some things I want to do while I’m here,” Steve says, already making plans, figuring out where he needs to go first, what he needs to do to _fix_ _things._ Maybe it won’t do anything for _his_ timeline, but god, if he can fix the mess in this one at least then shouldn’t he?

“What are you going to do?” Peggy asks, gaze suspicious. 

“Nothing much. Just fix a couple things.” It’s not the thing he’s  _ supposed  _ to do, maybe. He’s been given warnings on the dangers of meddling. But supposed to or not, it’s the  _ right  _ thing to do. Besides, he's already messed up enough just by being here. There's already  _two_ timelines, he's sure of that much. What's the harm in changing a couple tiny, itty bitty things to make the world a better place. 

“Steve, darling, I’m not sure playing around with the past- with  _ now- _ is a good idea. I might not be well versed in the effects of time line meddling, but I have a feeling they can’t be particularly positive.” 

“Bucky’s not dead and neither is HYDRA.” Steve says instead of trying to explain everything _wrong_ with his current timeline. Explain 50% of the world losing five years of their lives, Thor and how he’s ended up, the loss of Natasha,  _ everything.  _ This is the important thing. This is the thing that Peggy will understand the most and he knows it. 

Peggy’s smart. God she’s  _ smart.  _ So she doesn’t say ‘But we destroyed HYDRA’ or ‘How?’ or anything like that, instead the only sign of surprise she gives is a brief widening of her eyes, a short intake of breath as she abandons her papers, wraps a small hand around Steve’s shoulder and squeezes, “Well then, meddle away dear. Any resources SHIELD can offer are at your disposal.” 

“In that case, I think there’s someone we need to dig out of the ice.” 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

This timeline’s Steve doesn’t wake up in a cold room masquerading as the past with a game he’d already heard before playing on the radio. 

Instead he wakes up in a warm room filled with Peggy, Howard and Steve ready to explain just what has happened since he went into the ice in 45. 

They don’t get to the explaining right away, of course, because Steve in any timeline is still  _ Steve _ and the first thing he does when he sees the  _ other  _ Steve is come up swinging. 

He’s a little wobbly from a few years on ice, but he still puts up a good fight and it’s a good fifteen minutes and a fair bit of property damage before Peggy, Steve and Howard have shouted enough sense at him that he stops. 

(What  _ really _ does it is Steve shouting “BUCKY’S ALIVE” because apparently that’s the only way to make his past timeline selves stop trying to fucking  _ kill him  _ and really he should have figured that out by now. It’s  _ him.  _ Past him,  _ sure,  _ but still  _ him.)  _

The Steve of the past sits down heavily on the bed, head in his hands and visibly attempts to breathe. 

“He’s-” 

“Alive, yeah,” Steve says, sitting down beside his former self. Howard is making these fascinated looks like he wants to study this somehow, and Peggy looks like she’s considering the ramifications of  _ two  _ Steves in any one timeline and coming up with something that will exhaust her. 

“Where? How? We have to find him,” The other Steve says, something desperate in his voice. Steve  _ understands.  _ Steve felt that feeling from the moment the mask came off of Bucky in Washington and then again, for five years after he’d turned to dust in front of him. 

“Why do you think I woke you up, pal?” 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

It’s surprisingly easy to get Bucky back. 

Peggy keeps everything just quiet enough that they can get ahold of Zola’s squirrely ass before he realizes what’s going on and can make a break for it and really after that it’s just a matter of tracking down where the hell Bucky actually  _ is.  _

No one expects them, because no one expects them to be looking for a soldier who’s been dead for six years, and they especially don’t expect Captain America to be there, let alone  _ two  _ Captain Americas. 

Steve hangs back after they find him, watches as the other Steve runs shaking hands over Bucky’s face and presses their foreheads together. 

There’s a weight on his chest, an urge to reach out and touch his own Bucky- the one in his own time, because this Bucky, this Peggy, this whole timeline, it isn’t  _ his.  _ Any part of him that might have thought ‘ _ maybe.  _ **_maybe_ ** _ I could go back’  _ when he’d found out about time travel has been silenced by the reality of it all, by Peggy happy and moving on and this Bucky and Steve in front of him, and by the yearning to go  _ home _ that the last couple months in the past has brought. 

This isn’t where he belongs and he feels it acutely when he watches this Steve press his lips to this Bucky’s cheeks, to his chin, to his forehead, hears the low, cracked whisper of  _ “Steve”  _ and the responding  _ “I know. I love you. I should have told you before I lost you. God, I should have told you. I-”  _

He turns away, turns toward Peggy when it starts to feels like he’s witnessing something he shouldn’t be. The men involved are ostensibly him and Bucky, but they’re not,  _ not really.  _ It makes it feel wrong somehow to eavesdrop on their moment. 

“I always knew there was something between you two,” Peggy says, looking almost smugly satisfied. 

“There’s not- I haven’t- I mean-” Steve starts, strangely flustered, “He’s a little braver than I am apparently,” He settles for finally, gesturing vaguely toward the other Steve. 

“Oh Steven,” Peggy’s tone is gentle but firm, the same way her hands are when she lifts them to cup Steve’s face and draws all his attention onto her, “There is something terribly wrong with you that you can jump on a grenade and traverse timelines but have never been able to tell the man who’s clearly in love with you that you feel the same way.” 

“In my defense, it took me two years to work up the nerve to kiss you. I’m a little slow sometimes Pegs,” Steve says, leaning into the touch just a bit. He  _ could  _ entertain what ifs, could think about what might have happened if the gps had taken him just a few years earlier, to a Peggy without the _actual_ loves of her life, could contemplate a world where he didn’t care that there was another him in the ice and another Bucky being tortured and remade. 

He  _ could  _ contemplate those things, he’s sure, but the thought of it makes his chest hurt, makes every atom of his body want to ricochet itself back to where he belongs because he could never. He could never do that to Peggy, to this Steve and Bucky, to his own Bucky and Sam and Wanda and everyone else waiting for him back home. 

He could never live a life in this place, in this time, not  _ really.  _

“That’s not much of a defense darling, I’m sorry,” Peggy says, something bright and teasing as she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek. It’s soft and perfunctory,  _ easy,  _ and it does so much less than Steve has ever thought it would anytime he's imagined it over the last 12 years. “We’ll get you back home dear, and you can get the chance he just had too. In the meantime however, I’m pretty sure you still owe me a dance.” 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

Despite Steve’s protests he is, in fact, dragged out dancing before Howard can save him by fixing his time gps. He suspects Howard hasn’t finished it on purpose, purely so that he can see Steve look like an idiot while attempting to muddle through dancing with Peggy, Angie,  _ and _ Howard’s girl of the week. 

The music is fast and the dance steps are ones Steve doesn’t know, but the more he messes up the more Peggy and Angie laugh, so he supposes it’s not  _ that  _ awful. At least they’re  enjoying  him making a fool out of himself. 

Thankfully for Steve, and possibly for Peggy and Angie’s feet, the music slows and people pair off, dancing slow. Peggy draws him closer, settling her arms around Steve’s shoulders and tucking her head beneath his chin. 

Steve presses his nose into Peggy’s hair and breathes her in for a moment, committing it to memory. Putting this Peggy alongside all the other versions he’s known- Peggy in the war, fierce and passionate and determined to make the world better slotted alongside Peggy in the future, older and with shaking hands but bright eyes and just as much fierceness while she insisted Steve learn to his life because she had damn well lived hers slotted right alongside this version of her, just as fierce as all the others but with love in her eyes and a future ahead of her. 

It’s  _ good _ . It feels good to get this. But he knows it can’t last forever, and he thinks maybe, for all of them, that’s a good thing. 

 

“You promise me,” Peggy says later that night, when they’ve all had just a bit too much to drink and Peggy and Steve are perched on the edge of the guest bed while Daniel is carrying a half asleep Angie up to the trio’s bed, “You  _ promise me _ that you’re going to stop being an idiot and live a life with James that’s as good as the one I have here.” 

“I promise.” 

“And promise me that you have people there? People that love you just as much people love my Steve,” And there’s worry there now, and Steve can just imagine it, Peggy wondering if Steve is alone in the future, if he has no one but Bucky there waiting for him. 

“I promise, Pegs,” He says, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tight as he dares, “I’ve got family there that I need to get back to.” 

Peggy’s arms squeeze tightly around Steve and then she’s getting to her feet, settling her shoulders like she wasn’t just getting sentimental and worried on Steve’s behalf. Steve smiles despite himself, lets himself revel in Peggy’s sheer  _ Peggy-ness  _ for just a moment.

“Good, good. Of course you do,” She says like of course,  _ of course  _ it would be absolutely no other way and then, “Goodnight, Steve,” with a brush of her hand through Steve’s hair before she makes her way to the door. 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

“I’ve figured it out,” Howard says as he thrusts the watch like device at Steve. It looks a little different than before, but it also looks like maybe it’ll work. Or at least Steve thinks it does. 

“And it’s safe?” Peggy asks, drinking from a mug of coffee and rifling through more SHIELD paperwork. There’s been an exponential increase in the amount since Steve dropped the whole 'HYDRA is slowly rebuilding itself within SHIELD' bombshell. 

“95%,” Howard says, then when both Steve and Peggy shoot him disbelieving looks, “90%. 80. Okay, it's about 60% safe, but the worst that can happen is you’re blown to atoms and scattered across time and space.” 

“The  _ worst _ ,” Steve repeats quietly and then, holding his hand out for the device, “Let’s do it.” 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

When Steve returns to 2023 it’s only a week later in the timeline than he was supposed to originally and Bucky punches him in the arm,  _ hard, _ says “Fuck you Rogers, I thought you weren’t coming back,” and then drags him into a hug that makes even Steve’s ribs creak. 

“I didn’t mean to stay gone,” Steve says, and then gets out “I got stuck,” and “God, I’m so glad I’m home, I missed-” before Bucky’s interrupting anything else he might want to say by kissing him.  _ Hard.  _

Steve freezes and then melts, sliding his hands into Bucky’s hair and clinging close as he kisses him. And it could be 1943 or 2023 or  _ 2333  _ for all Steve cares in that moment, because Bucky is there and Bucky is kissing him and Steve feels like he has waited his entire goddamn life for this, to have  _ this.  _

He loved Peggy for a time, he has no doubt about that, but there is also no doubt that he has loved Bucky Barnes every single goddamn day of his life and with no end in sight. 

“You idiot,” Bucky breathes when they break apart, pressing his forehead into Steve’s. 

“I was going to kiss you first,” Steve says, holding tight to Bucky, bumping their noses together, tracing a hand down the line of his jaw like he can’t quite believe he gets to do this. Everything had gone so fast after Bucky got back, he hadn’t had the chance to do this. Hadn’t had the courage either, maybe.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky says, and “I thought you weren’t coming back. You didn’t show up when you were supposed to and I thought maybe…”  

“Maybe what?” Steve asks when Bucky doesn’t finish his sentence, doesn’t give a voice to whatever possibility he had thought Steve might take. 

“Maybe you’d taken the chance to be with Peg. To live a life.” 

“ _ Buck.  _ No. I  _ have _ a life. I couldn’t-” 

“You’d deserve it,” Bucky says and Steve feels himself nearly recoil at the idea of it, of what it would mean to do what Bucky had been here thinking he’d done for a goddamn week. 

“I wouldn’t. If I’d done that I wouldn’t deserve it. Not if it meant leaving you. Leaving everyone. Taking away Peg’s future and everything she’s built.  _ God,  _ leaving the other me in the ice while I went and lived a whole life while he was stuck there. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wouldn't deserve it then.” 

“You’ve given up enough Steve. _You’ve_ _done enough_. You’d deserve to live a life,” Bucky says, pulling back just a bit, cupping Steve’s face in his hands and looking just as stubborn as Steve feels. 

“Yeah, and that’s what I’m gonna do. Live a life. Here. With the fella I’m in love with, and the people I love, in the time and place I’m meant to be.” 

“Fella you’re in love with, huh?” Bucky says, lips curving up into a fond and crooked smile. 

“Yeah. Figured you might have realized that by now. Honestly, you’d think that if you chase after a guy for a century or so he’d start to get a clue.” 

“You can’t always expect a guy to take a hint. Sometimes you’ve gotta spell it out Rogers.”

“Alright,” Steve says and then gets out “I-L-O-V-” before Bucky’s shutting him up with his mouth again. 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

Steve had left the other timeline’s shield where it belongs, right alongside that timeline’s Steve. 

It doesn't feel right though. It feels arrogant to even think it, but a world with no Captain America in it feels just a little off kilter somehow, which is why he listens when Bucky presses a kiss to his bare chest one morning while the sun is still creeping its way up above the horizon and says “I bet you could get another one made. I'm sure Howard Stark isn't the only one who knew how to make a tin frisbee.” 

He has the new shield for all of a couple days before he hands it to Sam.

“I’m getting old. How do you feel about a promotion?” Steve asks, ignoring Bucky’s snort behind him. 

“No,” Sam says, and then “ _Hell_ no, I am not Captain America. Do I look like 250 pounds of patriotism and barely repressed rage to you?” 

“Sure you do,” Steve says, smiling wide enough he can feel the ache in his cheeks, and then, a little more serious, “I’m done fighting Sam.”

Sam snorts, says “Sure you are,” like he doesn’t believe Steve for even a moment, but he’s also allowed Steve to relinquish the shield into his grip, is sliding it onto his arm like he’s testing it and finding that it fits. 

It does. It fits better than even Steve expected. 

“It looks good on you,” He says, and he can feel it in his chest, the way he’s swelling up with pride at the sight of Sam, at his friend, at his  _ family.  _

“Of course it does. Everything looks good on me,” Sam says, grinning broadly at Steve. 

“Well yeah, in comparison to that ugly mug of yours anything would look good,” Steve says back and then they’re just standing there, grinning at each other like a couple of idiots until Bucky interrupts them. 

“You’re gonna look so fucking ridiculous in the uniform, Wilson,” Bucky says, slinging his arm around Steve’s shoulders, leaning heavily against him like he trusts Steve to fully support his weight while Steve slides an arm around Bucky’s waist easy as anything. 

“Fuck you, I’m gonna look great. Enjoy being a sidekick to the coolest looking motherfucker around,” Sam says, indignant as he raises the shield a little like he’s emphasizing his point. 

“Excuse you, the Winter Soldier is _no one’s_ sidekick.” 

“Oh yeah? Guess what this shield means, pal? It means I’m Captain America, which means you my friend, are the sidekick.” 

“You’d think after 5 years you two would get along more?” Steve asks, more rhetorically than anything. 

His question is met with two grinning idiots saying “ _ Hell no,”  _ in unison. 

 

⌛⌛⌛

 

So here’s the thing. 

The great big crux of the matter. 

Living a life, just like time travel means making a choice. 

Steve could have set the gps Howard had made for him for any time at all. He could have gone to 1945, could have gotten to Peggy Carter before she met anyone else, could have shown up for that dance he promised her while taking a nosedive into the arctic. 

It would have been easy to go to the past that he thought so much about while he was staring into a world missing half it’s people and piled with mistakes he thought he’d made. 

Even if Steve felt like he belonged it wouldn’t have changed anything though. Natasha would still be dead. So would Tony. So would  _ his  _ Peggy. Every mistake he’s ever made would still be there, in his past, but he’d be the only one who would understand those mistakes. 

On the other hand, Steve could have gone back to the future and continued as he had for the last twelve years. He could have shoved every ache he felt down and picked up the shield again and kept fighting until he fell down or until he beat every feeling piled up inside out of himself with his fists. 

He could have gone to any point on the timeline, done any number of things that resulted in any numbers of futures that weren’t the exact one he’s in now. He could have made a future where Natasha is still alive. But he could have also ended up in a life where everyone was dead. Or Clint was dead. Or Thor. Or Nebula. Or where they never got the 50% of the universe back because he’d fucked everything up trying to make his life into what he wanted it to be, trying to escape the pain the past had brought. 

He could have made a choice to do anything, really. 

 

He chooses instead to do this: 

He takes over for Natasha now that she’s gone, even though it hurts. He takes the place she had taken over for Fury and Fury, now recovered and whole and claiming he needs a motherfucking vacation takes the out easily. 

He sits in the ears of the New Avengers when they have missions, when new threats emerge, and proves what the history books say when they claim he’s one of the best tacticians the world has ever seen. 

He spends six months in upstate training the Young Avengers with Bucky and Scott when Cassie and a group of teenagers make news as the world’s newest super heroes.

He kisses Bucky Barnes every day that he has him within sight, and torments him with his horrible cooking and explores the future with him while they attempt to rebuild a future that is suffering from the aftermath of having half its population gone for 5 years. 

He starts a garden- He somehow kills the entire thing. 

He plants it again and this time it lives. 

So does he. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this and want to scream with me about avengers endgame or marvel in general come find me @attackofthezee on twitter.


End file.
